From the right: Battle of the Sexes

Would Hillary Clinton’s election as president usher in an era of gender harmony? If Barack Obama’s presidency is any guide, Eric Felton notes in The Weekly Standard, the opposite is more likely. Felton writes that Obama backers spoke of a racial healing, and polls showed Americans believed Obama’s election would be good for race relations. Instead, however, those who opposed Obama’s policies were accused of racism at the drop of a hat, and polls show Americans think race relations have gotten worse. So, Felton asks, “Will the end of the glass ceiling mean gender issues recede? Or will it mean, to the contrary, four years of relentless gender gripes? Will every dispute over policy be disdained as nothing but irremediable sexism?”

Economist: The Threat to a Free Internet

Cybersecurity, says Noah Smith at Bloomberg View, has generally managed to stay one step ahead of cyber-criminals. But that could soon change: “Machine learning — in particular, a recently popular technique called deep learning — changes that calculus . . . A.I. software available to thieves can learn to trick us out of our money — pretending to be a relative over the phone and gain access to your online accounts.” If machines get better at tricking humans, “the only defense will be better machines. That may require us to give up control over our own Internet activities.” The Internet’s status as a basically free entity could evaporate, Smith warns: “We might see soaring cybersecurity costs, decreased freedom of use, or rampant danger from artificially intelligent criminals.”

Historian: Egypt Back on the Brink

Egypt’s troubles are far from over, and economic struggles could plunge the country back into chaos, writes Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest. Terrorists have driven tourists away and low oil prices have reduced the help Egypt can get from its Persian Gulf allies. “But as policymakers dither, Egypt is edging toward another major crisis. Tens of millions of Egyptians live on the edge of subsistence; without food subsidies they cannot feed themselves or their families. Inflation is eating away at the slender margin that keeps millions of others from destitution.” US policymakers shouldn’t look away. “The Sisi government is far from perfect, but no real alternatives exist,” says Mead. “The next American president will need to make Sisi’s survival, and Egypt’s revival, major priorities.”

From the campaign trail: The Folly of Nominating Hillary

Critics of FBI Director James Comey’s recent disclosures in the e-mail investigation seem to forget that they’re a consequence of Democrats nominating someone under investigation, notes Rich Lowry at National Review. “This meant the director of the FBI was going to have a large hand, one way or the other, in the election,” he writes. “Comey’s attempted way out was to bend over backward to give Hillary a pass. This, of course, didn’t mean he wasn’t influencing the election; only that he was influencing it in way favorable to Hillary (although he tried to balance it out with his public statement excoriating her practices).” If he sat on the new e-mails, he’d be accused of aiding Hillary. If she loses because of them, he’ll be accused of the opposite. It all goes to show “what a bad idea it is for a political party to knowingly nominate someone who is likely guilty of criminal offenses.”

Intel expert: Russia’s Syrian Victory

The Syrian civil war is over, says John R. Schindler at the Observer, and Russia won. “Putin has achieved his strategic aims of saving the Assad regime while painting the West as inept villains who back jihadists,” he writes. “President Obama’s confident prediction that Moscow’s Syrian intervention would find the same quagmires his White House has abetted in Iraq and Afghanistan was badly wrong.” Time for the White House to face reality: “While many American politicos and foreign policy mavens — importantly Hillary Clinton is among them — advocate a No-Fly Zone in Syria to prevent the Assad regime and its Russian allies from using airpower to kill civilians, the reality is that an NFZ already exists in Syria. It’s supplied by the Russians.”